Hurriyya

Hurriyya is the Arabic term corresponding to the word 'freedom'. However, it was defined by the philosopher Ibn Arabi (d. 1240) as "perfect slavery to Allah".

According to the late American scholar of Islam, Franz Rosenthal (d. 2003), Islamic culture historically has nothing corresponding to the Western concept of freedom as "a fundamental political concept that could have served as a rallying cry for great causes." A Muslim “was expected to consider subordination of his own freedom to the beliefs, morality and customs of the group as the only proper course of behavior…” Thus "…the individual was not expected to exercise any free choice as to how he wished to be governed…In general, …governmental authority admitted of no participation of the individual as such, who therefore did not possess any real freedom vis-à-vis it."